Google's new project--Human aging?

Google CEO Larry Page said to TIME that Google is planning to launch a new company, called Calico, that will focus on health and aging. (http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2152422,00.html)

Wow, a computer company joins healthcare? Is Calico going to become a pharmaceutical company? Let's wait to see...

Anyway, I think aging and health-span are really important issues these days. By 2030, there will be about 70 million people over the age of 65 in USA (based on administration on aging, http://www.aoa.gov/Aging_Statistics/). The treatment and costs associated with aging-related diseases contribute to huge personal, societal and economic burdens. It is time to do something about this. Hopeful Calico project can help...

I metamorphosed....

Last two years was my transition from a graduate student to a postdoctoral researcher. So it was kind of busy. You know, wrapping up experiments, writing dissertation, looking for jobs, job interview, Ph.D. degree defense.....

Now I've been working as a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University for one year. I am studying the molecular mechanism of aging foe. Although it is kind of different from insect development and metamorphosis, I still use insect as my model. This time the model is fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster.

The whole scientific career just likes the life cycle of an holometabolous insect (complete metamorphosis). Undergrad and graduate study are the embryonic and larval stages. Postdoctoral training is the pupal stage. Faculty is the adult stage where next generation young scientists were 'produced'. The graduate study are the tough time. Some take longer time, others take shorter time. Eventually we make through the graduation, 'the metamorphosis', it is a bit of success. Just like the former lab mate, Alan said after he graduated from Brown,''Pupa here I come". ....